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Dravidian languages
Dravidian languages , family of about 23 languages that appears to be unrelated to any other known language family. The Dravidian languages are spoken by more than 200 million people, living chiefly in S and central India and N Sri Lanka. The four major Dravidian languages are Kannada, having over 4...
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Bantu languages
Bantu languages group of African languages forming a subdivision of the Benue-Niger division of the Niger-Congo branch of the Niger-Kordofanian language family (see African languages ). Bantu contains hundreds of languages that are spoken by 120 million Africans in the Congo Basin, Angola, the Rep...
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human evolution
human evolution theory of the origins of the human species, Homo sapiens. Modern understanding of human origins is derived largely from the findings of paleontology , anthropology , and genetics , and involves the process of natural selection (see Darwinism ). Although gaps in the fossil reco...
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Tagalog
Tagalog or Tagal , dominant people of Luzon, the Philippines, and the second largest ethnolinguistic group in the Philippines. They number about 16 million. Most of the population is Christian. Tagalog, a Malayo-Polynesian language that had a written standard form before the coming of the Spanis...
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Malayo-Polynesian languages
Malayo-Polynesian languages , sometimes also called Austronesian languages , family of languages estimated at from 300 to 500 tongues and understood by approximately 300 million people in Madagascar; the Malay Peninsula; Indonesia and New Guinea; the Philippines; Taiwan; the Melanesian, Micronesi...
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Spanish language
Spanish language member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages ). The official language of Spain and 19 Latin American nations, Spanish is spoken as a first language by about 330 million persons and as a second language by perha...
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dating, radioactive
dating, radioactive (radiometric dating) Any of several methods using radioactive decay to assess the ages of archaeological remains, fossils and rocks. The specimens must contain a very long-lived radioisotope of known half-life (time taken for one half of its nuclei to decay), which, with a measu...
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Amtrak
Amtrak the National Railroad Passenger Corp., authorized to operate virtually all intercity passenger railroad routes in the United States. Amtrak was created by Congress in 1970 in response to more than two decades of continuous operating deficits by privately run passenger railroads; over 100 of ...
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refugee
refugee one who leaves one's native land either because of expulsion or to escape persecution. The legal problem of accepting refugees is discussed under asylum ; this article considers only mass dislocations and the organizations that help refugees.
The Rise of International Refugee Organiz...
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Romanian language
Romanian language member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages ). It is spoken by about 22 million people in Romania, where it is the official language, by 3 million people in Moldova, and by perhaps another 1 million persons s...
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